How easy it is for God to give! It is not less easy for him to take away. I have had some experience in this. Not long ago when the call came for the large offering for Christiania, I vowed in my heart to give a certain amount. On the Sabbath of taking up this offering I was at a little church among the Indians. Inquiring for the reading, and not finding it, I quieted my conscience with the thought that this is considered a mission field, and the call does not apply here. This excuse did not hold good, for the reading was afterward found. “My offering can be put in at the next place,” I thought. But it was deferred. Soon after this, I awoke one morning and found the mainspring of my watch broken. A new one cost the exact amount of my vow. That set me to thinking, “That vow shall be paid,” my heart said. But it was deferred again.
Afterward, passing hurriedly through a city park, I thought of a copy of the Signs of the Times in my pocket, and sat down for a few moments, hoping to hand the paper to some needy soul. In removing the paper my purse came with it, and fell unnoticed to the ground. The paper was given away, but for three days vain search was made for the purse. This set me to thinking more. Fifteen dollars was gone; how could that vow and others, too, now be paid? Humbly I told God all about my vows and purse. My efforts and inventions to find the purse were exhausted. Walking along the street one morning, a boy called to stop me. “Did you lose anything in the park?” he asked. In half an hour all was safely returned. Other people, known to be less honest, sat in the park nearer the purse than the boy who kept it for me. Of course God was caring for his own; for in the steward’s heart all was devoted to the Lord. Three days gives a man time to think of many neglected duties and wasted farthings. Today those vows are paid.
“When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou owest.”
“Ye have sown much, and bring in little. . . . Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house.” Read Haggai 1:2-11.
God has a house going up to-day, of living stones; character is going into the structure. It takes offerings to find and develop character. Now is the time your offerings are needed. It is not safe to defer giving, lest the Lord blow upon the work of your hands, and it come to little. What mean your rich harvests and good prices, if not that God is giving to you that you may give to his glorious work in the earth? Here is God’s object lesson seen in grain and fruit. “Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit.” Looking at the fields of gold, the orchards of purple and scarlet, let joy fill all hearts that they betoken the extending of the gospel of the kingdom and the filling of the world with the fruits of his Spirit.
Then “bring an offering, and come into his courts. . . . Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad.”
